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You are 44 years old. You have cerebral palsy from an accident at birth. You walk with an awkward gait, have slurred speech, and drool from time to time. Your body sometimes moves joltingly, and you cannot carry a full glass of water across the room without spilling it.

You do not believe you are sexy. You have never been told you are sexy and were never encouraged to wear make-up or alluring clothes. You have never gotten catcalls from men on a construction site. You have never picked up a guy in a bar. You have been on 2 dates in your life. You have no role models for sexuality in the media or real life. You put rape out of your mind because you are not “real woman” and therefore, not in danger.

The entire time you were a teenager you wore clothes that covered you from head to toe. You only hung out with gay boys. You had one boyfriend, sure, at 16, but it was brief. You barely kissed, and he turned out to be gay anyway. You lost your virginity at 18 to someone you loved deeply, but he was mentally ill and also, largely gay. You inserted yourself in the middle of gay boy culture because that is where you were safe and where you belonged. Here, you did not have to face the fact that no one wanted you because there was a reason no one wanted you. They were all gay. In your early twenties, you had your first really close heterosexual female friend. You happened to pick a friend who was a real fireball with men. She could get any guy she wanted, despite the fact that she often choose very badly. You cannot get any guy you want. You cannot get ANY guy period.

Well, one thing leads to another and you do find yourself in a long-term relationship, but you tell yourself, he’s different. Since, he’s much older and not that sexual a person, it’s easy to convince yourself. After that, you marry a different man. This man thinks you are the bee’s knees. But again, you convince yourself he’s different. Even after you’ve had tons of sex with him and given natural childbirth, he’s the exception. You tell him that he’s only attracted to you because he loves you. You tell him this on a regular basis. Still, there are no sexy women with disabilities in porn or movies. People are still shocked that you gave childbirth or that you are married at all. Your students still ask you if you can have sex. Your students still ask you if your husband and child are disabled. You never look at men, why bother? Men are boring anyhow.

Then, something changes. You meet someone. This person thinks you are hot. And your ever-patient husband decides you two can have an open marriage. This “someone” torments you. The level of confusion and passion makes you want to kill yourself or kill him or kill random people and it ends. Badly. But, it’s not so bad after all. You will always love him, and this person made you believe you were sexy. He forced you to believe it and now you believe it. With the permission of your husband: you go online, you flirt with guys, you have illicit sex, you go on dates, you make out with boys in bars, you brag, you tell all your friends. When guys dismiss you, you think, “Too bad for them, I give great head!” When you walk down the street now, you look men in the eye. You smile at them. You stare at their cocks when they are at eye level on the train. You notice their hands and arms. A man tells you, I want to see you again, I was hard the entire conversation. The conversation was about architecture. You are thrilled. You find all kinds of men are attracted to you. You know how to lure them, to talk to them, to flirt with them. You can now distinguish who is attracted to you and who isn’t. You go nuts. You want to fuck every man. You want all the men attracted to you, even if only to make a philosophical point.

However, things get sticky. Well, you fall in love with someone you should have never fallen in love with and there’s that. Despite attracting more men than you know what to do with, you get stuck on one. The one who is a liar and bad for you. After the dust settles, you actually rarely have sex because, its true, most men aren’t that interesting. And you have to break it off with your beloved yoga teacher when he comes onto you because you want him to be your platonic, beloved yoga teacher. And at the end of the day romance, passion, and intimacy are what you’re really after, not fucking.

However, you still haven’t lost your fascination with this power. This power you find so amusing and mysterious. It was there all along. You find that people don’t understand your plight. You thought everyone would be thrilled for your discovery. But you also find out that women get envious. They call you a slut and a whore. You thought that every able-bodied, relatively good-looking, heterosexual woman was aware of this power. You find that is not true, as far as you know. You begin to understand why women hate being sexualized. Sometimes you, even you. don’t want to be sexualized. You understand now that being a sexy woman, knowing you are a sexy woman, needs an amount of reserve and responsibility. You also know your new power is a common power, a fake power, a meaningless power, yet you feel powerful all the same. And you want your story, the uncommon story, to be heard.

The year my husband and became poly (or open) was 2010. We had been married ten years. We had an 8 year old son. The switch came quickly and seemingly easily. It probably was something always at the back of our minds. When we married, we made an agreement that we would be able to spend large times apart: traveling or with other platonic friends. The summer I was pregnant, for example, my father’s wife had died and I spent two months with him across the country. Later, my husband would go spend 6 weeks at a writing conference. But there was flip side to this; because of my intense experiences with loss at an early age (first boyfriend died when I was 18, sister died when I was 22, parents divorced at age six, a short stay in an orphanage..etc) all this added up to me having “abanodonment” issue.s. My husband, an aspergery, introvert had trouble making deep relationships. I was controlling. We went with the flow. All this made from kind of an unhealthy co-dependent relationship where I felt like he was too dependent on me emotionally and for friendship and he probably thought that I was too controlling. It felt good for awhile to have false security with someone where I could pick what we did and where we went without much protest. I lived in terror of letting go because I felt that if I did, disaster would come crashing in. My husband did his part by being passive and forgetful and spacy.

We had a child and this complicated things. Our child was 100 planned. Despite getting a little hassle from the medical establishment or incredibly rude comments of surprise from strangers because I had cerebral palsy, the pregnancy was easy andthis I gave natural childbirth. At the birth, and after was were I think our relationship began to switch. My husband really cared for me throughout the pregnancy and he was seminal in the birth. I had very very bad post-partum depression and he did his best to take up the slack.

But, first a step backward. As much as we tried and tried, my husband and I never had a sex life that worked on a regular basis. He was very interested in S &M. Although we played a couple of times, this didn’t interest me at all. Sinnce his early 20’s my husband always had difficulty getting and erection. I had my own sexual issues which I didn’t quite begin to unpack until recently. First, I had had so few orgams in my life, I could remember exactly who they were with and when. These had only been from intercourse and accidental. I did have these with my husband about three times. Each time with him I felt horrible after and started crying.

Sex became that big thing between us. I did everything I could to avoid it. When I saw that the opportunity for sex was coming – ie. my son took off to a play date – I would clam up and become uncomfortable. It was always the opposite of what I felt sex should be : organic, happy, and relaxing. Once we began having sex, it would often be good and satisfiying. Although I very rarely had an orgasm, I had always found sex incredibly hot and arousing and satisfying. But, with my husband, it was just a matter of getting there. I examined all the causes for my emotions. We lived in a high stress place and were often busy. The “caretaking” roles I felt for my husband and son made me feel decidedly unsexy. My husband was not attentive in the ways I wanted him to be: i.e. bringing home little (or big) usrprises, calling from work, planning dates and so on. He was attentive in other ways. He was my best friend and always ready to have a chat and help me sort out arguments with friends. He made dinner most nights. He was the best father possible. And he was totally behind my writing career and disability activism. He viewed my disability as a strength and part of my identity; in ways that so few understood. There were 1000 ways we fit together and 1000 ways we didn’t. My sexual attraction to my husband had never been that strong. His for me had been. On top of this, as he had trouble getting an erection and that mI wantedade me feel less and less sex. I bought a book called ‘hot monogamy” we tried dates, scheduling, and it all remained difficult.

The beginning of poly.

So, in 2010, we were in the place where we spent our summers near my in-laws. I had a vivarant poetry community there and gave a reading every year. It was this year after I gave a reading,. My husband was tired and grumpy so he went home. My son and I went to dinner with the poets. During this dinner, I began to notice that one of the young poets was flrting with me. He was flirting pretty openly right in front of our friends. I wasn’t expecting it at all. At the end of dinner, he passed me a note asking me to come visit at a bar where he worked. Well, the short version is he did have a crush on me. This was a few days before his 28th birthday. I had recently turned 41.

I told my husband that this was going on. I told him that it was something wanted to go after. He quickly OKed it. I never really spoke to him about his thought process, but he probably figured “this is a kid who lives 2000 miles from us and we are leaving in a week.” My husband desired something too. He desired to go to S/M clubs and explore that world. At this point, he did not want a relationship or intercourse. I had dated someone in my 20s who went to a dominatix. He ended up marrying and yet maintained the relationship with his Dom. For whatever reason, I had never seen these two situations at odds. For me, S/M wasn’t necessarily void of sexuality but it seemed so different to the sex I shared with my husband. I can’t quite explain it.

Well, with my boyfriend, we had one night together that was one of my best nights, ever. Talking and fucking and drinking well into the morning. We had sex about seven times. Tho still no orgasm for me! Then, I went home and had sex with my husband two or three times. I was physically and emotionally completely drained and even a little ill (and still had to contend with the 8 year old!).

My beau was also starting a relationship with someone his age and the next week was a mess. But, finally, we went home and started to sort things out,.

My husband started to go to munches and S/M clubs. I can’t speak for him, but he told me that he found the situation at first sexy, but then frustrating because he wasn’t going with anyone. He wasn’t meeting people. He stuck with it for awhile. He met some cool friends who ran a rope-tying class and would go to their parties. I was tempted to go too- the women running the class where transgender public school teachers! But, I never went.

Things with my “boyfriend” were frought. The relationship was more romantic than sexual. We spent (minimum) 2-3 hours a day talking on the phone, Gchat, or texting. We were in constant communication. We shared things with were writing and reading and gossip in the poetry world. We talked extensively about women he was dating and his relationships and our mutual friends. We never had phone sex or skype sex. We argued constantly about what our relationship was and wasn’t. Because I was older, I was primarily the listener and asdvisor. He had never really been in a long-term relationship. He didn’t want to be my boyfriend. He wanted something traditional. But, still we were CRAZY for each other. Like teenagers. We made visits to each other four or five times over a year and a half and these were some of my best and worst times. We would do poetry things together and drink and have great sex. But, we would also fight about what we “were”. In retrospect, I provbably did put pressure on him to stay with me. But I was so crazy about him.

I drove my husband and friends crazy because it was all that I could think about or talk about. It was also all tied up with my writing. I also later found out that I was in early menopause! So, my hormones being a mess added to the situation. Well, things went from bad to worse. I was dragging my family out there for the summer and everyone involved was fucking miserable.

Meanwhile, my husband started to really want some kind of a relationship with someone in the SM community. After first, I was really threatened by this. We talked a lot about whether he should just hire a dom. We talked about variations. I just need time to adjust to situations (usually) and he decided he wanted a more intense relationship with sex(ie a girlfriend) so he went on OK Cupid.

I was still struggling with my feelings about my boyfriend. I had invited him to come live with us for the summer. With this at the back of my mind, my husband and I moved into separate bedrooms and put our son into the small bedroom in the front. There were also other reasons for this change. I have pretty severe sleeping problems and have always found it difficult to sleep together. As we are both writers, we both wanted office space. The fact that we live in a 824 Sq FT apartment with four animals and a kid left us no psychic space.

My boyfriend finally met the girl who was “right” for him. I went out West for a visit, but he refused to see me and talk (they had been dating about 2 weeks). He didn’t even tell me until I got there and he told me over text message. O! 28 yr olds! This all led to a lot of screaming in the phone. But, he finally began to develop what he wanted. I was happy and proud of him in a way…but also suffering intense grief, not only of the relationship, but of all the other, past grief. To make matters worse, I was in town to support a friend who had been addicted to meth and sex for two years. He had just kicked out his meth addicted boyfriend and was trying to get clean. However, one night I work up and he was gone..to an orgy and didn’t resurface until 2 the next day. Then, he asked me to leave the apartment so he could fuck and probably use with his ex. I ended up, literally, alone on Easter in a bar. I was drinking heavily the entire trip. I was in more pain than I could bear. My ex would not speak to me. My friend was still using. My family felt far away. Meditation was no help. I finally considered suicide, but was able to get myself home.

Once home, I felt very safe. Things went up and down with my ex. We both tried to cut each other off, we tried being friends, he tried asking me for advice. But it always ended in passion, fights, and fear. My family had already made plans to go out there that summer, so I wanted to do something to protect my life and have a social life. I went on OKcupid, but in THAT zip code and started talking to men with the intension that I might have a descraction out there. I quickly met lots of men, but nothing really came of it. Except!

I met this boy named Chris. We started having “sex” via text message. One day I was doing this via text and I had an orgasm! Pretty much my first via masturbation. I was 42. Chris and I planned to meet, but we never did. My family went out there and my boyfriend were unable to resolve anything,. I did meet his girlfriend, but he didn’t want to spend time with all of us as friends, and he wouldn’t tell her about our affair, which had been a daily think for two years. We just fought. It was a disaster.

Meanwhile, my husband was pretty into Cupid, He began chatting with a few women before we left for the summer. He had dates to go back to! I was supportive and we had a lot of conversations about sexual politics and the philosophy of dating. I ended up helping him make his profile!

I had closed my profile, but a few weeks after returning home, I decided to reopen it, this time in New York. I had a pretty wild profile. I wrote that I like to give head…which I do and it got lots of attention. But I decided not to disclose my disability on the profile. I discussed this ethically with some friends who agree it was not needed. After all,, many people lie about something and this was omission, not lying. Since, I’m so for “outing” it might seem unfair or contradictory, but I wanted to be judged (or rather not judged) on the same playing field as other women. Of course, other women have to deal with race issues, but disability has the stigma of being “non-sexual” in a way that race doesn’t. I have found many many more people to be ableist than racist. Anyway, my logic.

Then, came the question of how and when to tell men. I tried it different ways: casually dropping it in, making it serious, telling them I would understand if it wasn’t their thing…again, this was a small sampling – I’ve been in contact with about 70 different men – and there seemed to be an age difference. Most men my age or older fled the minute they found out. Men UNDER 30 didn’t give a shit, and sometimes it would make them mORE curious. I liken this to the way that disability perception has changed over the past ten years and younger dudes have been taught about disability in college. Of course, the “older, accomplished, married woman” doesn’t hurt! I don’t think I went on many, if any, dates before telling the guy. Although my disability is minimal, it is obvious and not telling just seemed to stressful for everyone. Fair or unfair, disability became a test…I could automatically get rid of a lot of options – and there were options, at first. (More on this later). I think only one guy was brave enough to say I don’t want to date a disabled person. The rest just stop the conversation. Occasionally, I write them a note “Not your type?” Now, because I have a public persona as a poet, there are videos of me reading online and they can see who I am.

I began to have adventures that I hadn’t had before. Sex-skyped with a cute orthodox college kid. I met a boy who wanted to be dominated via g-chat. He had a girlfriend so it wasn’t the best situation. Mostly, I would watch him masturbate via skype and then command him to clean the house and make his GF dinner (which he did). He was interesting to me because he was a very gentle person who just had this kinky side that he could tell anyone about. He also had the biggest cock I’d ever seen, It was uncomfortably big. We met one day and I ‘forced” him to go down on me in a parking lot. I also had many dates. Mostly just drinks with little interest on either side. Dates were and are hard for me because (from online) I don’t really know if there is an attraction and often there isn’t so it seems like an hour wasted.

But what happened, mostly, was I started to discover that I had sexual power. Like everyone else, some people wanted me, others didn’t. But, before, I had no sexual power. society, my family, the media: there had been NO messages that disabled women could be sexual. This, coupled with trauma over my mother’s dating habits, Catholicism and having two sex addicted friends, one who died of AIDS, one who nearly died of AIDS, made for someone, well who could not have an orgasm. I unfairly blamed a lot on my husband thinking I wasn’t attracted to him: however, I never oogled men or their cocks. I didn’t masturbate. I did not watch porn. Having orgams (yes!) while asleep and having sex to make my husband happy were the extent of my sex life. I had had a high libido as a young woman, and I thought I had a low libido now. Turns out. I didn’t.

So, while all this discovery was happening, my husband started dating someone. She was kinky too. They were a like in many ways and they became close quickly. I did not meet her for a few months. He would not spend the night with her b/c we weren’t “Out” to our son. After my first boyfriend, I came out to anyone who would listen, friends, parents, everyone. hat

I also became involved with someone and I began “cheating.” I met a man on Cupid who I will call N. N and I had a lot in common. We were both artists and we had very simulair martial issues. I was in a weak time because I was still “getting over” that damn boyfriend (who was now engaged). N told me about the unhappiness in his marriage and something clicked. I told him I didn’t want to get involved with someone “cheating” and told him to go away. Howver, he was persistant in a way that none of the others had been. He emailed every day. He answered every email quickly. He always asked how I was. Words I didn’t hear often, We decided to meet and started a short-lived sexual relationship. We kissed a lot in pubic and he came over to my house once. Mostly, the relationship was about two people who were unhappy and listened and empathized with each other. But I wanted more. I wanted to be sexual with him. He would give me mixed messages. I kept going back and forth. My desire for him was strong, so it was blocking off my emotional empathy for his wife and I was stuck in something I’d thought I’d never do. I have been attracted to other married men whose wives I know and a red light stops me. So, I kept trying different things to change the situation: being casual friends, asking to mmeet his wife, asking him to tell his wife about our friendship, cutting off communication. I went on list-servs for cheaters and survivors to learn more about how cheating affects people and to create more empathy for his wife, to guilt myself into cutting off communication. We had long stopped any sexual contact, but he told his wife that I was a casual accaintance, not someone he spoke with every day. And when we had drinks, he would not tell her to my knowledge.

As of both our faults, our lives began to mere in ways they shouldn’t have. I met his kid, his friends, and so on. I continued reading about infidelity and the other side of it to build empathy for his wife. I also continued dating to try to distract myself. I read on the infidelity websites that sometimes people decide to tell the wife. I had her contact info, but felt it was his problem. I was never out to ruin anyone’s life. I just, selfishly, wanted my friend. As you can imagine, as I fluxed, saying one day let’s never speak again and the next, let’s just be friends and stop lying to your wife, he became more and more distant. He stopped taking about his marriage. I was frustrated because I didn’t want to be a “sounding board” and he would not DO anything about his marriage. Not go to conseling or break up – just complain. It all came to a stop when I confronted him for continuing to cruise girls online (kept running into him). It seemed like he was just avoiding everything. Me. His wife. and lying to ME and HER. It seemed like he was just looking for the next woman to distract himself. I felt totally hurt. I had thought we had a real connection. I think we still do, but he was doing everything to avoid dealing with his feelings. He got livid at me “checking up on him.” I had told him that I wanted to talk about it and I accepted whatever he was trying to do as a friend. He decided not to see me anymore (but kept emailing and saying he would). Next stop, some mutual friends got engaged and both of our families were invited to the party. I thought that this would be a good opportunity to meet his wife and be presented as a friend. Somehow I got involved on a married person’s list-serv and people suggested that I was being an awful whore “flaunting’ myself. I asked him whether it was a good idea and he gave me the usual ‘I don’t mind”. I decided it was naïve, and perhaps mean to go…so I didn’t.

After that weekend, we began to lose contact further. I asked him numerous times not to email, and finally he agreed. This relationship has been really hard for me to “get over.” I think the most difficult thing was that I never was able to really discuss with him what happened and why it happened.

Neither of my boyfriends had any negative reaction to my disability. The young one thought of me as sort of a mentor, so disability activism was something he became interested in and thought a lot about. He would write poems about ableism. There were some hard moments tho. When we first were together, he told me that growing up in rural Idaho he had never had much interaction with disabled people. He had never met anyone with cerebral palsy. At first, he didn’t know what to expect and whether he could relate to me. Because I have slurred speech people often make a mistake about what it is: they often think I am drunk or deaf or mentally impaired. I’ve been dismissed due to my voice many times. Sometimes in intial phone job interviews. Once by the police while trying to report a crime, often by cabbies, once by a guy in a club who I asked to dance and he turned to his friend and said “she’s some kind of retard.”

My other boyfriend (who is 9 years older than me) had the reaction of no reaction. I told him before we met, but it wasn’t something that particularly interested him. At first, I would occasionally talk about my activist, but he never seemed to want to talk about it. But there were a lot things he didn’t want to discuss. I took it as partly generational and partly just him accepting me as a whole.

Today, I was learning a lot about gay sex hookups. My friend has an app on his phone called Scuff. It detects other guys online and says where they are located. One was within 361 feet from us! They are all cute. We discussed the difficulty of the hook-up and how the internet affects that. I am mildly interested in the “hook up.” But, how I feel about it is still unclear. I am tempted to do it, but there are a few things that hold me back.

I actually HAVE done it, with a college student (20 wow!) last summer. He was a brilliant kid, sensitive. We spoke for awhile online. We talked aout what he was reading for school. He told me he didn’t have a girlfriend because it seemed his friends had them just to have someone. He thought that was silly. We met in a café and then came to my house and we fucked. I can’t remember his name! But afterward was akward. He smoked a cigarette and then left. I never heard from or saw him again. Did I find this satisfying? Well, it was definitely sexy and I had a “sex fix” that lasted two or three months. But, I didn’t really feel any of the feelings I wanted : closeness, longing, passion. And I guess I felt a little empty. Immediately, of course, I thought of N and emailed him.

But other than emotionally, I feel some fear with the hook-up. My gay friend plays with his boyfriend, so it’s two men. With me, it’s just, well me. I wouldn’t go to anyone’s apartment and I don’t feel 100% comfortable with them coming to my house.

Last night me husband’s girlfriend came over for dinner. I began to develop empathy for her in ways I hadn’t. As she sat at dinner with my husband, son, I felt bad because I realized that she was stepping into an already intense nearly 15 year relationship, not just with two people- but with a third, our son. Over the years my son, H and I have (of course) developed jokes, arguments, and ways of relating. When friends come over these it is easier, and honestly, our friends who come over have been our friends for at least ten years, so it’s different. I put myself in my H’s GF’s shoes and saw how frightened and threatened I might feel in the same situation. I’m not sure exactly how she does feel, but for myself, it would be difficult. It was kind of worse because my husband didn’t go home with her, he went to bed in his room, his, not mine.

I guess, up until this, I had seen HER as a threat. They have sex. We do not. They have a very similar ways of relating to the world. We have opposite ways of relating to the world. I often feel burdened by my marriage – which in addition to a lot of emotional “work” contains a lot of fucking physical work – cleaning, getting a kid too and from school, taking care of animals etc. Since we live in New York everything is a bit easier or a bit harder. Things are very close geographically. You don’t have to drive two or ten miles to get to a store. Everything we need is in a 5 block radius. However, you can’t put groceries in the car: you have to carry them. You have to walk everywhere. You have to deal directly with weather. Snow storm? Well, there’s no running from house to car to work: you have to WALK through said snow storm to subway or bus – etc.

All this is a little more difficult for me with cerebral palsy. I am always hesitant to admit that because it feels like the minute you say “It’s harder with CP” the chorus jumps up and goes SEE! SEE! she’s weak. Don’t give her a job! She can’t do it! I tend to think I am actually stronger than most people. The way I view it is if someone strapped three pound weights across both their ankles and wrists and changed their voice to be a bit blurring so that people would dismiss them, then went off to work on the subways with no elevators – how might they feel at the end of the day? As if they were a weak person?

Anyway, from the view here, the girlfriend appears to be a person with a heck of a lot of money and not many responsibilities. Someone who goes home every day to a spotless house full of pretty objects and has take out. The girlfriend is someone who, with kink and a clean, quiet house, and good sex appeared to me someone who could lure away my husband. My husband who has to help get a child to and fro, works to help fund the family, and is often cooking or doing laundry while an aging animal poops or throws up under his feet. Maybe I have transferred MY feelings of wanting to escape onto my husband!

However, the things I am jealous of in the GF are just physical things. They are things that if I set my mind to it, could have been obtainable. I could have had more money. I could have remained childless. I could have lived in a nunnery had I wanted to.

Having her over last night began to cure me of the green is greener syndrome. It made me want to be kinder and more inclusive and have more empathy for her. I am still not comfortable with her sex life…I don’t have to be. But, maybe I do need to avoid discussing it with her, for now.

A friend told me a few weeks ago that my issue was I had almost no one in my life with a positive sex life. I began to tally my friends up. 1. a domestic abuse and incest survivor who has not even thought of having sex in 3 years. 2. An ex-meth addict who used to participate in weekly 14-32 hour “orgies” where he was fucked by 30 or 40 guys. 3. an older friend (also gay) who hasn’t had a lover in 20 years. 4. a friend who husband is a real dick and she basically stays with him for sex. 5. a sex-addict who died of AIDS. 6. A friend who kept dating an alcoholic who would not commit to her because it was “the best sex she’d ever had.” 7. A husband who has had erectile disfunction since he was a teenager. 8. a girlfriend who in is her forties and never had a relationship. 9. My parents… need I say more.

Then there is me. If I could cut sex out of my heart and life, I would. Sexuality has brought me nothing but heartache, loving the wrong people, lapses in an otherwise pretty strong ethical existence, obsession, silly acts, and yes, death and loss. I guess that’s not true! It brought me a son! But my best long-term relationships have been non-consumated – except with my husband. I won’t say they are non-sexual because they always have a sexual element or feeling. My friends and I will hug hold hands, argue and have close discussions all the time. How to get were I can relate to this sex thing better? It doesn’t mean I have a low libido. Actually, since beginning menopause, my libido has been through the roof. Sometimes I can masturbate and come every day. But, it’s more a matter of learning how not to judge myself or others. Learning how to connect with others sexually. That I keep trying but haven’t gotten the hang of. AND learning how to wield my sexual feelings in positive ways so I don’t end up fucking married men.

I used to have a lot of empathy for cheaters. And I kind of still do. I have a friend across the country who has written to me a lot about his affairs. I am very interested in the concept of an affair and why people have them. As a married woman, when I post ads 80% of the men who come onto me are cheating. The rest are primarily youngsters. This is what I referred to when I said the options are boundless …but are they? OK, most of the men are cheating. That’s something to avoid. Group two: too fussy or mainstream to even try to date a person with a disability. Group Three: Just want a fuck or hook-up OR are so flakey you never get to the date. Group Four: In this group we’ll put men who want someone single, who has the potential to be theirs. This leaves a small margin. Group six: Someone who wants an actual relationship, and has some semblance of responsibility but doesn’t might that I have a disability and a family. AND we have to LIKE each other. It’s a needle in a hay stack!

Hey. I love what you've written and how you've written it. I found myself connecting with your journey of discovering, celebrating, and then figuring out what the fuck to do with your sexuality! Maybe you're a bit ahead of me though, so I'm gleaning wisdom from your insights

I also (for some different reasons to you) had difficulty with feeling empowered as a whole sexual person until more recently.

Thank you!! What a kind post! I would love to hear how you have dealt with coming into yourself. Here's some more:

This week, I have been happier than usual. I am beginning to lose any desire to speak to N. & I haven’t much this past month, If anyone can relate, please let me know. Can folks who had an affair be “friends” if all the sexulity is suppressed or gone? If people have to disconnect entirely, how do they resolve that? I have only been on one date with a poly guy – no two dates – and this poly guy said most of his wives lovers had been married men cheating. I wish my ethical backbone had been stronger when meeting this person. Part of it was his consistency. Out of 100 dates, he was the only one who EVER texted to see if I got home ok, first date.

I had a disaterous date Tuesday. Older man, single, divorced. He was a gentleman in a lot of ways, but I found him too sexually forward and insistant in his emails. I like guys who are more interested in connecting emotionally or intellectually first. Well, I met him where he was staying, at a hotel, how convient and he started in right away. He was dashing, but I wasn’t really attracted to him because he was big and I like small guys, usually. He was kind and a little funny, but the sexual pressure was too much. We spent the entire time debating whether to go to his room. Finally, he said he didn’t use condoms. He said condoms were for young people and it was a matter of trust. I said I wasn’t on birth control .He did not react. I highly doubt this dude is HIV pos, but it was more the principle. I had spent the previous weekend with my gay friend talking about who people are using condoms less and less. AND I totally did not want his cum in me. My husband and I are not “fluid bonded” but I think having someone cum in your mouth or otherwise is a huge gift of love and acceptance, and I don’t know this guy! Well, we did fool around a bit in the stairwell. But when he was touching me, I didn’t feel aroused and I felt more like I used to feel when I would sleep with any guy just because they wanted too. My mind kept thinking, it’s an adventure! but, in the end, it felt kind of gross. Then, I missed N TERRIBLY. I got on the incorrect train so that I could walk by a place he sometimes goes- but I didn’t go there…instead too a long, long walk home. When I arrived home there was an email from another suitor saying he was off work and on the way to my house to fool around…but I missed him! Then, I decided to jump back in and email some new people. I emailed an older guy and a real youngster (20). The older guy is very very friendly, but not my type physically. The other person who emailed Tuesday isn’t a close friend, we’ve only been on one date and email here and there.

I want to give up. I do not want to give up. I want a lover with passion, but that only brings suffering. I want to be friends with N right now, but can’t bear to hear from him , largely out of anger. I would like to be monogamous, but don’t feel that I can be sexual with my husband and I wouldn’t expect my husband to be monogamous. All these feelings reside in me.

I said that I have a lot of empathy for cheaters. In the poly world, it seems, that is a huge no no (to cheat) but in practice, the few poly people I've met have been with cheaters or in situations where they were lied to.

The reason why I felt empathy is because I deeply understand how difficult it is to be in a longterm marriage. I deeply have experienced how resentment and sexual differences add up. I totally understand wanting to have passionate love and newness. I also understand that people sometimes divorce too easily and mess up lives. I think I was deeply affected because my parents divorced when I was six. My mother was lonely and had a short affair. She told my father and, instead of forgiving her, he left her for another woman. Two years later, he moved and I had vitally no contact with him. Obviously, I had a bad father, but what about that affair. I somehow don't blame my mother or the guy she fucked. I blame my FATHER for not forgiving her. Note; my father went onto cheat with everyone woman he was with after that. So, to me poly seems like a good answer. However, for most people it's just not an option.

However, there are levels of lying in my own situation that I didn't understand at first. OK N has an unhappy marriage. He cheats on his wife (emotionally, primarily) with me. He tells her we are barely friends. Hoowever, then it turns out that N is also lying to me! He's cruising other women and just dishonest about little stuff. At first, this seems like a protection. OK, he meets a woman on the internet and doesn't want her to have his address and info 1. because that's kind of hot 2. He doesn't know if she will tell his wife. BUT then they stop fucking,. It becomes clear she won't tell his wife. They are good friends and even share some friends at this point. However, he still lies to her. SO, she finds out that he's lying (not just to wife) but to friends, to wife, to her and probably everyone else. For awhile, as his confident, she (meaning me) was the person he opened up to. But, once he came too close, he closed down. No one knows him. Or he tries not to let them. However, he (somehow) wanted SOMEONE to open up to, he must have, otherwise, why the hell did he pick her?